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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28007415">Sparkles of Failure</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithhamsters01/pseuds/danceswithhamsters01'>danceswithhamsters01</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Reddit Prompts 2: Because the old one is quite full [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age: Origins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Circle of Magi, Embarrassment, Gen, Hero of Ferelden as a youngster, Magic, Pre-Canon, Spell Failure</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:13:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>724</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28007415</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithhamsters01/pseuds/danceswithhamsters01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a prompt from r/dragonage.</p>
<p>Prompt 4: Mages- Their first attempt and experience with a branch of magic that they don’t like.</p>
<p>Young Sevarra Amell prided herself on studying well and being a good student. Then, one day, she's confronted with a spell she cannot get right, despite her best efforts. What's worse, this happened in front of a classroom of witnesses.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Reddit Prompts 2: Because the old one is quite full [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918846</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sparkles of Failure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If she weren’t so bad at fire magic, she would’ve used it to torch the tome that laid open before her on the table in a fit of anger. The impulse was quickly smothered. To destroy any part of the Circle library’s collection would’ve been regarded as a heretical act, nearly as unforgivable as proclaiming that there was no Maker at all during a Sunday service in the chapel. The apprentice had to content herself with moodily slamming the book closed and shoving it away from her. She followed that up with heaving a just as moody sigh and propping up her head by resting her chin in her hands, elbows defiantly on the table.</p>
<p>Sevarra scowled at the embossed title on the book’s spine. <em>Elmonday’s Primer of Entropy Magic, revised</em>. She knew she wasn’t stupid. She could read. She even knew what all of the words in the book meant! She even had a rough idea of what the process of casting the first example spell, a hex that made the victim more vulnerable to elemental magic, would be like. But why did the very thought of it make her feel like she was holding something slimy? Why did it make her feel sick to her stomach? <em>Why? Why would I want to use magic like that on anyone? Doesn’t the Chant say that we’re not supposed to use magic to do harm?</em></p>
<p>“Since you apparently have finished the assigned reading, Miss Amell, would you care to demonstrate the spell from page 47?” Enchanter Durmond asked in his nasally and disapproving voice.</p>
<p>Her eyes went wide and panic swirled in the apprentice’s gut. Her? Cast a hex? On what, exactly? She looked at the instructor, bewilderment plain upon her features.</p>
<p>Durmond leveled a pointed glare her way and nodded to the target: a small table at the front of the class that held a cage containing one rather irate rat that paced to and fro, clearly unhappy about its current accommodation.</p>
<p>She frowned, lip trembling. <em>That rat’s done nothing to me! Why is it a target?</em></p>
<p>“Today, Miss Amell, we do not have all afternoon!” the instructor said.</p>
<p>“But that’s a living creature--”</p>
<p>“Young lady, demonstrate the spell or you will find yourself sent to the First Enchanter’s office.”</p>
<p>She frowned again and stood up from her seat. <em>I’m sorry, little rat. Nothing personal, honest.</em></p>
<p>Sevarra knew that her gestures were a perfect copy of what she’d seen and read in the primer, she even got all the words to the chant right and at the correct cadence… but something felt wrong. As she leveled her arm at the rat and pointed, she knew that the magic wasn’t flowing how it was supposed to. A bright red aura should’ve covered the rodent, but all that happened was a flicker of pink lights that vanished in a pair of heartbeats, leaving the rat still perturbed about its predicament but otherwise unharmed. A couple of her peers snickered from their seats a row behind her.</p>
<p>Enchanter Durmond glared at the hecklers, silencing them. He turned his gaze her way, making her suddenly want to be very, very still and very, very small; as if she could vanish from sight. “Again. Do not bollocks it up, this time.”</p>
<p>Once again, she performed the gestures and the chant perfectly. A bright red aura <em>should</em> have enveloped the rat. Instead, after the last word of the spell left her lips, she was overwhelmed with a feeling of nausea, of <em>wrongness</em>. Looking back at the event in the future, she’d say her own innate magic was resisting her command. At that moment, however, she did not have that insight. All she knew was that she felt sick and that the little rat found itself covered in what appeared to be pink glitter that faded after a few moments. Oh, and the hearty laughter of the class ringing in her ears. The loudest and most distinct was Dimitri, whose laugh she likened to a donkey braying. She glared at him until Durmond snapped.</p>
<p>“Right, we’re going to have a little chat with the good First Enchanter, you and me,” the instructor said as he grabbed her arm and began leading her out of the room. “As for the rest of you lot, read the next chapter until I get back!”</p>
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